


Impossible Things

by starcunning



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Adultery, Aetheria Alexandria Laskaria, Anal Play, BDSM, Clothed Sex, Dirty Talk, F/M, Humiliation, Jealousy, Noah sas Gabranth, Orgasm Denial, Porn with Feelings, Spreading, aka Aetheria eir Laskaris; daughter of a Nhalmasquan prince and reluctant wife to the viceroy, aka Noah Minor; the son of Noah van Gabranth of the IVth Legion, stress positions, that expects your spouse to take a lover, that said ... things are not entirely on the up and up, the line between 'adultery' and 'infidelity' is kind of fine when you're of that class of nobility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:37:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcunning/pseuds/starcunning
Summary: The sharp rapping at the distant door startled her—for all that it was quieted by distance, her nervous anticipation had sharpened her senses such that she jumped, and leapt to take her skirts in her hands, bustling to the foyer. He knocked again as she descended the stairs, and she hastened her steps, genuinely afraid for a moment that he would not knock a third time.He would, some part of her knew; he would knock as many times as was required. The only question, truly, was what he would deem fair recompense for being made to wait.





	Impossible Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seraphicrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphicrose/gifts).

> seraphicrose and I whenever we're given a region of the world with no lore: it's free real estate
> 
> Also available [on tumblr.](https://starcunning.tumblr.com/post/187220225384/impossible-things)

The last rays of the sun gilded the walls of the Laskarian Palace, the distant hills casting long shadows into the very air. Aetheria watched it from the open window overlooking her balcony, an evening breeze catching in her hair. The air was perfumed by the wood squill and crocuses already blooming upon the lawns, which separated her petty court from the palace proper.

It should have been her home, the palace that bore her name. It had been her father’s, until the Garlean Empire had displaced him in favor of their appointed magistrate. But it seemed far too hateful a thing for her to reside there with the sitting viceroy, and she appeared only when duty required that she accompany Marcian goe Basilicus—her husband.

She was not looking for him then, nor hoping to catch sight of him in the dwindling daylight.

Instead she passed her hours in the Stepsimon. There she waited for the son of the Empire’s greatest conqueror—Noah sas Gabranth, who had elected not to remain in his father’s shadow in Dalmasca. He had been expected at the palace earlier in the day: servants gossiped, and so the news passed, lips to ear, until it had come to Aetheria’s attention. She had tendered an invitation of her own then. He had sent no reply; he never did, only left her to wait, heart in throat, to glimpse him.

She did, then, as he stepped out of the long shadows of the palace wall. Backlit by the sunset, his hair was a crown of flame, and golden light glittered upon his epaulets. Satisfied, Aetheria withdrew from the window and dismissed her staff for the evening.

Aetheria had but a few minutes to prepare herself for him, and she spent them letting down her hair and brushing it. She had a prodigious amount of hair—thick and deep red, hanging past her waist when she let it spill about her shoulders—and she was rather proud of it. She shook her head, letting it ripple behind her, and the scent of jasmine rose upon the evening air, commingling with the breath of native flowers.

Still, her heart was no calmer for it—she felt it atwitter in her breast like she was a girl of six-and-ten, meeting her young love in stolen moments behind the scholam. She was twice again that age, and Noah some handful of years older, but she did not doubt he felt much the same about their meetings.

The sharp rapping at the distant door startled her—for all that it was quieted by distance, her nervous anticipation had sharpened her senses such that she jumped, and leapt to take her skirts in her hands, bustling to the foyer. He knocked again as she descended the stairs, and she hastened her steps, genuinely afraid for a moment that he would not knock a third time.

He would, some part of her knew; he would knock as many times as was required. The only question, truly, was what he would deem fair recompense for being made to wait.

Aetheria threw wide the doors of the Stepsimon to find him standing on the front portico. The evening sky haloed him in crimson, and his eyes—the deep blue-green of distant seas—fixed upon her. From a distance she had assumed he wore his dress uniform, and was surprised to find him instead jacketed in forest green velvet and gold braid, which was well-suited to his fair complexion and ginger hair. In polite society, to avoid confusion with his famous father, he was sometimes called Noah Minor, but Aetheria saw nothing lesser about him.

She remembered then to breathe; to do something other than smile girlishly at him. “Praefectus,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise. Do come in.”  
“Princess Aetheria,” he named her, and even that sent a thrill through her. How often had he called her ‘princess’ with a coarser tongue? His smile was canny, as though he knew her thoughts already, stepping into the foyer. “I had thought you accustomed to better service by your staff.”  
“My staff,” she said, closing the door, “have all been dismissed for the evening.” She crossed to stand before Noah once more, reaching out to run her fingers along the edge of his lapels, tugging on them lightly to draw him down to kiss her, but he resisted the pull.  
“And here I thought I had been promised tea.” He lifted his hands to wrap his fingers around her bare wrists. They were a soldier’s hands, as rough as her own skin was delicate.  
Aetheria looked up into his face. Spring had blossomed pale freckles upon his cheeks, which would ripen with the summer’s coming. He was handsome in winter, of course, but those freckles always invited her touch—a touch he would long deny her until she ached with it. He peeled her hands from his jacket, but did not let go right away, his thumb caressing the pulse point at the inside of her wrist. “You know that was just a pretense,” Aetheria said, laughing.  
“Perhaps it was,” Noah said, “but I intend to hold you to your word.”  
“But I have just told you that my staff has been dismissed.”  
Noah’s smile broadened. “Then you shall have the pleasure of serving me personally.”  
How was it that he always knew just what to say? She could feel the ache building within her already. “Take your ease in the serail, then,” she suggested; “I shall join you anon.”  
Noah let go of her wrists, though he soon captured her right hand in his own, drawing it up so close that his breath feathered over her skin. “Do not take too long, princess,” he warned her.

Then he let her go, and she longed for his touch with unspeakable immediacy. He only turned away then to mount the staircase, and she sighed to watch him go. Then, mindful of his words, she hurried to find the nearest servants’ passage, thence to go to the kitchens.  


They too were empty—her edict to be left alone in the little palace had been quite absolute, and absolutely obeyed. It did not seem so difficult, really, to boil water and prepare the teapots, but she was unfamiliar with the location of just about everything, and the kettle spent a long while screaming, waiting for her to be ready for it. Only just before she departed did she fill the stacking pots—the lower metal one nearly to the brim and the upper with enough to cover the tea leaves mounded in the pale porcelain. All was set upon a silver tray, and she went off with it toward the serail.

The serail was bounded by floor-to-ceiling windows on its south-facing wall, with smaller panes to the east and west, offering a grand vista of the gardens below. These were much more formal than the lawns between the Stepsimon and the Laskarian Palace, and a stairway wrapped around the walls of the room which led down into the gardens proper. A fountain burbled at its center, tiled with brilliant porcelain, and statuary lined the paths, placed there by the princesses and queens of Nhalmasque that had come before Aetheria.

Her own addition had been a gift bestowed upon her by the man who now stood before the windows, hands clasped at the small of his back, looking out over the jasmine and fig trees, yet to flower. He had commissioned for her a set of twin statues—male and female lions, carved life-size of Dalmascan stone. Aetheria had put them in the heart of the garden, in twin ornamental rounds of boxwood separated by a footpath. They regarded one another from across this distance, and Aetheria went often to sit before them in contemplation to soothe her heartache.

She did not often succeed in doing so.

The glass cups clattered softly as she set down the tray, and Noah turned to regard her. For a moment she wondered if he too had been looking at the lions. Whatever had occupied him for the long minutes she had been lost in the kitchens, he did not speak of it. He only moved to drape himself over one of the long, low couches, unbuttoning his jacket. He had unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt already, and loosened his cravat; this air of dishevelment suited him better than the strict formality with which he had greeted her.

“Pour for me,” he suggested. “You recall how I take my tea, I trust?”  
“Of course,” she replied.  
He took it rabbit’s-blood dark, practically undiluted, and without sugar, and she set the cup before him with a smile. For her own, she set a single lump of beet sugar in her cup and poured a splash of tea over it, and filled the rest with boiling water. Even pale as honey, the tea still tasted too strongly to her. As soon suck on a handful of mulch, so far as she was concerned.

“My father is coming to visit in the summer,” he said.  
“Is that wise?” Aetheria wondered. “I had thought the dread eikon-slayer had been sniffing around Dalmasca recently?”  
“She had,” Noah agreed. “The _Prima Vista_ is many things, but it is not built for stealth. It has not been sighted in imperial airspace for nigh on a year. Whatever she and Lexentale were after, they seem to have found it and left satisfied.”  
“You are certain, then, that it is not prelude to invasion?”  
“Rather,” Noah agreed. “The wall they erected to cut off Doma causes a problem, but the Eorzean Alliance is much occupied by events west of here; they have not the resources to stir up trouble in Dalmasca for now, and the rebels are still cowed from the eikons’ destruction of Rabanastre.” He sipped at his tea. “Besides, it has been nearly half a decade since I have seen my father. Would you think it wiser if I went to Dalmasca instead?” he wondered.  
“No,” she said quickly. However Noah Major might impose upon his son’s free time, it was still preferable to her lover departing the city.  
“I thought not,” he said. “Take off your dress.”

He delivered the command in the selfsame tone as the news that had come before it, but she leapt to obey, standing at once and setting her teacup aside.  
“No,” he said; “keep hold of that. In fact, you might wish to hold it over your head so you have better incentive not to spill a drop.”  
_Bastard,_ she thought, even as she raised her hand. It was no simple matter to loose the stays of her gown behind her back and one-handed; Aetheria could not help but think he loved to watch her struggle.

She knew that, in fact. And he relished the frustration in her expression, so she let it show where ordinarily she might not—she had spent a lifetime schooling her face to placidity, as much a statue as the lioness in the garden. Rolling her shoulders back thrust her chest into prominence, her cleavage straining against the violet silk of her gown. Noah sat up straighter, sipping at his tea as he watched her. The dwindling daylight cut shadows into his face, his expression growing darker, hungrier as she struggled to slip one arm free from the silk of her sleeve. She could hear her tea sloshing in the glass overhead, her ears altogether too attuned to the sounds of the room.

“My mother is coming, too,” he said, as though the tableau before him did not matter.  
Aetheria passed the cup from one hand to the other so that she could pull down the neck of her gown, now gaping, and expose her shoulder and forearm. “Really?” she said mildly. “I don’t believe I’ve had the chance to meet the lady. Perhaps I shall invite her for tea as well.”  
Noah snorted: “And here I thought you disdained the drink.”  
“Not with you,” she said. Once her arms were out of the sleeves, it was a simple matter to fit her hand between the material pooled at her waist and the muslin undergown she wore, pressing the petticoats beneath against her body. Silk slithered over cotton, and under the weight of its own beading and embroidery collapsed around her feet so that she might step out of it. Aetheria had the inkling then that he would maintain the edict; to make her life easier in the future she took another generous swallow of the tea, its earthy flavor flooding her senses. Still, better there than in her hair.  
“Perhaps you should invite her to your ladies’ salon instead,” he suggested.  
Aetheria could not help but smile at that. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” she said, leaning heavily on the last word.  
“There are certain pleasures I prefer to reserve for myself,” he said. “You may continue to undress.”

The muslin gown buttoned in the back, and she drew her hair forward over one shoulder. She fumbled with the undergown a long moment, struggling to work the buttons through the holes stitched into the cotton. She shot Noah a plaintive look, and he rose, taking her bare shoulders in his hands and turning her away from him. His fingers brushed the nape of her neck, and she could feel her hair prickle with anticipation. He undid the first few buttons, and then bent his head so that his breath skated over the side of her neck.  
When he spoke, it was very close to her ear, the heat of his mouth ilms away from its delicate taper. “Has your husband sent for you of late?” he asked.  
“Once or twice,” Aetheria said.  
“And he had you?” His fingers curled in the linen, and she knew what would happen next if she said yes.  
“On those occasions,” she replied, the detached neutrality of a lady in her tone.  
Noah’s hands jerked, and she heard stitches pop and loose buttons clatter against the glass top of the table. Tea sloshed over the edge of her cup with the force of it, stinging hot against her scalp. “When was the last time you were fucked, Aetheria?” he asked, voice low and hoarse.  
She closed her eyes, biting back a low moan. “Not since … when was it, the Lupercalia ball?” she mused. Noah had taken her then, pressed against the wall in some hallway leading from the ballroom, hasty and hot; she remembered the need in his eyes then and longed to turn about and see if he wore the same look. But he still had a hold of her gown, another tug popping or loosening the last few buttons.  
He reached up and took the teacup from her grasp, and he must have swallowed the rest of her weak tea, because his breath was still hotter in the wake of it. He buried his nose in her hair, sliding the muslin down over her shoulders. “Nobody fucks you but me,” he said.  
“No,” she agreed. But because she could not resist playing with fire, she added, “But I have my duties as a wife.”  
“Duty,” he said, snorting. Noah curled an arm about her waist, his fingers pressing against her bare skin to pull him back against her chest. She could feel velvet against her skin, and the bite of cold metal from the beads and decorations strung between his lapels. “I have a hard time imagining you the _dutiful_ wife with how hotly you plead for me.”  
“For _you,_” Aetheria replied, letting her head loll back against his shoulder, baring her neck to him.

He bent his mouth to her skin, his teeth grazing the crux of her neck, tracing upward to seize upon her earlobe, tracing the tapering shape. When she whimpered, he only laughed. “Does he have you as I have you?” Noah asked. “Does he find you wet and wanting, eager to press back against him, begging for him to fill you?”  
Aetheria cursed. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest, vision hazy with her racing pulse.  
“Language, princess,” Noah scolded, lifting a hand to swat at her. Since he was pressed against her back, her ass settled at the crux of his hip, he struck her instead on the curve of the breast, just above the lace-trimmed cups of her brassiere. “Answer the question.”  
“No,” she said, and then remembered to clarify: “No, he does not have me like that.”  
Noah pulled away from her then, and she let out a little whimper. He slid his hands beneath the waistband of her petticoats, fingers pressed into the curve of her hips. The way he yanked them down made her stumble, and she could hear the tearing of cloth in his eagerness. She felt the air rush about her legs, cloth fluttering as gown and petticoats slumped to the floor. He pulled her back against him once more, both hands sliding up over her stomach to cup her breasts. She could feel his erection straining against his trousers. “So you do not writhe so prettily for him? He has never felt you clench around him, whimpering and clasping at him?”  
“You know no one can make me come but you, Noah,” Aetheria moaned.  
He laughed, low and close to her ear, his thumb tracing the shape of her nipple through the cloth. “I do know that,” he said. “I could say the word right now.” He fairly purred as he spoke, his unheard laughter felt instead in the rush of his breath over her skin. “Shall I?”  
“No,” she said, before she really had a chance to think about it. “No, please; please, please fuck me first. I want your cock inside me when you make me come.”  
“What a way for a princess to talk!” His laughter was audible then, his hand suddenly buried in her hair, fingers curled against her scalp to force her to lift her head from his shoulder. He shoved her forward, and she bent at the waist. She could see her reflection dimly in the glass atop the table, and reached out with her hands to brace herself.

Noah tutted, catching her by the wrist. “I thought you wanted me to fuck you, princess?” he asked.  
“I do,” Aetheria whimpered, stretching her other arm back to mirror the way he had pulled back the first.  
“Then do only what I tell you to,” he said, pressing her hand to the curve of her ass. She could feel the ribbons of her garter belt stretched taut against her skin. “Put your feet together,” he told her. “Stay bent just like that, and spread yourself for me.”  
She did, and despite the fact that she still wore her panties—clinging close to her skin by then—she felt terribly exposed. Aetheria stared down her own reflection, cast half in shadow by the spill of her hair as Noah let go of it.  
He groaned softly behind her, and she heard the rustling of cloth. Then his thumb skimmed over her vulva, tracing her slit through the damp cloth of her underwear. He hooked a finger into her panties and drew them aside harshly, exposing her cunt. The material bunched and drew taut, and she could feel the silk pressed against her clit.

A moment later she felt the head of him—blunt and hot—pressed against her. She gripped her ass more tightly, striving to spread herself wider still so that he could simply slide into her. A moment later he did just that, and the low groan that escaped him made her shiver.  
“Hold still,” Noah said. “Don’t you dare move.”

It seemed a simple enough edict to obey, but he did not place his hand upon her hip or the small of her back as she had imagined, nor even seize upon her shoulder and bend himself over her. One hand remained on the curve of her ass, holding her panties aside, but he did not so much as touch her with the other. Instead he drew back—slowly—until only the very tip of him still spread her and she ached with his emptiness, and then he drove himself into her once more. The motion drew the silk of her panties taut against her clit once more, rubbing subtly against her, and she moved with the force of him. It was not unpleasant—she could feel herself ground just a bit more against the straining silk, and to have the length of him buried in her once more was pleasant enough.

Those slow strokes were a delicious torment; she could feel every ilm of him—desperately longed for and too-soon withdrawn; she clenched herself around him as though she could hold him inside her for longer, but she was utterly at his mercy. Her reflection stared up at her, and she could watch the way her lips parted to moan, the way her brow knit as sensation threatened to overwhelm her. In that wan image of herself she saw her own wantonness, the way her breasts strained against the lace, and she had to admit she did not look much like a princess then.

His pace mounted with his desire, but still he laid no bracing hand upon her. She could feel her grip on herself slipping, her folds no longer spread so wide, and he must have felt it too—or, more likely, seen it—because he lifted his hand to smack her across the upper thigh.  
“Spread yourself, princess,” he commanded her, and when she did, he said, “_don’t_ move.”

It was a harder thing to manage than she first imagined. If she were not in heels, perhaps, she could have done it easily. If she could have braced her legs further apart. If she could just put her hands on the table—if he would simply take hold of her; by hip or shoulder or even by her hair. Oh, she would relish him pulling her back onto his cock by her hair. Slowly, even the pleasure of watching her reflection slipped away from her with the dwindling of the last light of sunset.

Each time he would start slow, but as he worked his way back up to the quicker pace he had begun to set she would wobble in her footing, or her fingers would slip, or she would quiver. And he would stop to admonish her. She cherished those stinging slaps, along with the opportunity to redeem herself that would always follow. At a word from her, this would end; Aetheria had that power. She could tell him to stop, or tap three times against his body, or clap her hands together—also three times—and these cruelties would end. He had to know he had set an impossible task. Aetheria knew it too, but rather than allow that to frustrate her she was bound and determined to do the impossible, at least for a few moments.

When she managed it, it was the most delicious feeling in the world. He could see her so intimately, spread around him, watch himself sink into her and feel the heat of her as he spread her wide, his every thrust grinding her clit against silk that only grew more and more damp with her need. She wanted to come; perhaps he would even make her, soon, she thought, her thighs aching as she tried to brace herself against his thrusts. Her balance failed her, and she lifted a foot from the carpet, stumbling forward half a step. Noah went stock still, as he always did, and she let out a penitent whimper, immediately correcting her posture.

He let go of her panties, and she felt something grasp at the core of her. As he drew back and she felt him slipping out of her, Aetheria almost sobbed.  
“No,” she said; “no, please, don’t.”  
“Don’t _what_?” he asked, his voice velvety.  
“Don’t stop fucking me, please.” Aetheria’s voice trembled, as did the rest of her.  
“How many times have I reminded you about your fucking language,” he said, the annoyance in his tone undercut by a wicked amusement. “That’s no way for a princess to behave, nor is it your place to try to direct me.” He reached out to stroke his fingers over the curve of her back, though, and she could feel the heat of his body. “If I told you now that I had no intention of letting you come,” he said, “would you still beg half so prettily?”  
“Yes,” Aetheria said in an instant. “Please, Noah …”  
“‘Please use me,’” he prompted her.  
She let out a low whine of anticipation. “Please use me,” she repeated. “Please make yourself come with my body.”  
“Put your hands on the table,” he said.  
She wanted to weep with relief, but it seemed almost too soon for that. Instead she only braced her palms against the edge of the table, arching her back higher.

Noah yanked her panties down then so that they bunched around her thighs, just where her suspenders clasped the lace-trimmed edges of her stockings. He took hold of her ass in both hands and he spread her. She could feel herself quivering, imagining he inspected her, but it was not shame that burned in her cheeks. He pressed into her a moment later, releasing his grasp to seize her by the hips instead.  
He did not need to pull her back onto him; she pressed back against him readily enough. It was a wanton instinct, flooding her like the relief that wrenched a broken little cry from her soft lips. But he made no protest, only buried himself deep inside her, and she was grateful for that too.

It was almost brutal, the way he fucked her—too hard and too fast for her to want to come, even if he had not promised to deny her. She didn’t want to come anymore by then anyway, though; all she wanted was to feel him, to be allowed to service him. He made of her a willing toy, the force of his thrusts rippling through her body, but his grip on her—and hers on the table—meant that she could take it gladly.

He did not speak, then; barely even a groan passed his lips except the final one—a guttural cry spilled against her back as he slammed home for the last time. She could feel his cock jerk and the heat of his seed flood her, and she was glad of it. The light was long gone, but she imagined her own expression—the brainless, animal satisfaction of being bred well. He panted against her back a long moment, and then drew back, slipping from her. She could feel his come leaking from her, and wondered what he thought of the sight.

If he had any thoughts about it at all, he gave no sign when he spoke. “Aetheria,” he said.  
She straightened, pulling her panties back up into place, and turned to look at him. When she leaned in to kiss her, he took her face in his hands and drew her in, his lips gentle against her own. “It’s late,” she murmured against his mouth. “After dark already. Are you required elsewhere in the morning?”  
“Not early,” he said.  
“Will you stay the night?” she asked.  
He nodded once, saying nothing as he bent to retrieve her discarded clothing.

They retired together to her private apartments then, and since her staff were dismissed, Noah drew her bath and tended her in it. Her hair hung over the lip of the tub so as to keep it dry, and he gathered it and twisted it into a loose knot with a deftness unexpected of a soldier’s hands.

It was not as though his wickedness had all fled in the wake of their coupling—he still touched her with intent, knowing full well what it would do to her to have his rough hands massage her thighs, and lingered far too long over washing her chest until it was not the warmth of the water that made her pant and arch in the bath.

But he let her kiss him, drawing him down with her dripping arms to press her supple mouth to his. Her damp fingers tangled in his hair, and he braced himself against the lip of the tub with one hand, the other pressed to the side of her neck, his thumb caressing her jaw. It was an intimacy more treasured for its rarity, as were the occasions he might share her bed for more than an hour.

He slept nude, his strong limbs splayed across her bed until she joined him in it, and then he coiled around her instead, his body pressed to her back, one arm tucked under her pillows. The other wrapped around her waist, his fingers buried in the silk of her nightgown.

When she woke it was still dark, silvery moonlight limning the world outside, making of it a ghostly echo of itself. Noah had not moved an ilm. She could feel the warmth of his sleeping skin everywhere he pressed against her, the boundary between their bodies searing. This close, the scent of him lingered on the air—oil of cloves and incense; pitch and Nagxian ginger. It suited him and always had, but she had few occasions to focus on it.

He took a deep breath, coming to wakefulness in an instant, and she felt the pillows shift as he lifted his head. He let it drop after a moment, his hand smoothing rumpled silk over her stomach. Aetheria sighed, settling back against him, and he kissed against the nape of her neck. His hand trailed over the curve of her hip and down along the outside of her thigh until his fingers met bare skin, and then he slipped his hand up under the hem of her gown.

“Aetheria,” he said, his voice hoarse with sleep.  
She only hummed in reply, a rising sound that constituted a wordless question.  
“It’s nothing,” he said after a moment. “Did I wake you?”  
“No,” she said. “I think rather I woke you.”  
His breath spilled down her back. He nuzzled against the base of her skull, and she imagined he was drinking in her scent the way she had his but moments before. “Go back to sleep,” he said.  
But she did not want to, not really; it seemed a crime to waste what stolen time she had with him in dreams. Aetheria reached out behind herself, fitting her fingers briefly to his side, where his spine curved. She nestled against him, and could feel him stir. Her laughter was barely more than the soft escape of breath, yet he seemed to hear it anyway.  
He laughed too, low and throaty, against the side of her neck. Noah opened his mouth to run his tongue along the tapering shape of her ear, and she could not help but squirm. “Or not,” he said after a moment, shifting his weight behind her.

He lifted the hand that rested at her hip, teasing the hem of her nightgown higher, bunching it and coaxing it until it gathered about her waist, leaving her bare to his touch. He didn’t, though, his hand sweeping over her bare arm instead to find her hand. Noah’s fingers intertwined with her own, and he guided her touch to the curve of her breast, drawing a lazy circle around one nipple. The other arm, pillowed beneath her head, straightened, and then he bent it back to bury his fingers in her hair, tipping her head back so that she could not see. Noah let go of her hand so that he could fondle her other breast, pinching at her through the silk. She whimpered his name, trying to arch back far enough so that she could see him, but it was to little avail.

“What is it, princess?” he asked.  
Aetheria whimpered, shifting against him to settle his cock against the curve of her ass. “I need you inside me,” she told him. It came out more plaintive than she had intended.  
He let out a low growl, which she took for agreement, but then he pinched sharply at her nipple, making her yelp. “Mm,” he said. “Tell me, princess, when left to your own devices … do you ever tend to yourself?”  
“Sometimes,” she admitted.  
“Does it help?”  
“Not at all.” Aetheria laughed, breathless, feeling her chest heave against her own hand—and his. “How could it? You are not here to grant me release.”  
“Then you are crueler to yourself than I could ever be,” he said. It was not quite an admonishment. “I know you keep oils around for such a purpose. Fetch them for me.”

He let her go in the wake of that instruction, and though she was loathe to pull away from his arms, heavy and comforting around her, she did so nevertheless. It seemed a shame to fold down the covers and slip from the warmth of the bed, her brief nightgown falling back down to brush her thighs as she padded barefoot across the room to rummage through her toiletries. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark by then, so when she found it and turned back, she was stilled by the sight of him.

His hair was sleep-rumpled and untidy, his face cast in deep shadow. His arms were outstretched before him, as though he sought to embrace her again as soon as possible. He had pushed the sheets down about his waist, dark against his pale skin. Diffuse moonlight traced the curve of his shoulder and side, giving the barest impression of a war-hardened form. It was a beautiful sight, and welcome, and she ached to recall how few her opportunities to glimpse such a thing were.

“Come here, princess,” he said, and though the words were gentle the unmistakable command in them broke her from her reverie. Clutching the ampoule in both hands, she clambered back into bed. He reached out and took it from her, folding it away in his hand. Then he pulled her back down against his chest, facing away from him. He seemed cooler to her touch then, no longer furnace-hot, but still a welcome warmth. He wrapped his arms around her waist, shifting her body against his, pulling her back and up against his chest. She watched him pour oil into his palm, then cast the ampoule aside as he slathered it over his fingers. He rolled his hips back so that he could take hold of his shaft, the head brushing the curve of her ass as he did, and groaned softly as he stroked himself with one hand.  
“Pull your skirt up,” he said. She hastened to obey, and he grunted in appreciation, taking hold of himself to press against her, frotting himself against her nether lips, opening her with the blunted head of him. He was already slick with oil, but her wetness made it still more slippery, and Aetheria knew he could sink into her with ease. He didn’t, though; instead he wrapped both arms around her waist and bent his head so that he could bite at the back of her neck. “Do you want me?” he asked.  
Aetheria whimpered. “Yes,” she said, arching her shoulders. His arms pinned hers against her sides, but with her hands she could grip at her thighs and pull herself open, much in the way he had demanded she do earlier that evening.  
“Push back,” he said.

She arched and braced herself against the bed as best she was able, but he held her fast to his chest, and she could take him no deeper. He was barely teasing against her entrance, and to clamp down on him would only let him slip away from her. Aetheria writhed in his grip, grinding herself shallowly against the head of him as though this would be enough to satisfy—as though she had a chance of escaping his grasp. But she needed him, needed to feel him stretch her and fill her, so she fought just the same.

It was an exercise in futility and frustration, to have him so close—all around her—and yet absent the one place she most longed to feel him. She kicked at the sheets, trying to brace with the balls of her feet against the mattress, fighting for purchase, but he remained tantalizingly out of reach. “Please,” she whined.  
His lips brushed the curve of her shoulder. “If you want it enough, you’ll push back.”  
“Please, please, please,” she panted, throwing her calf back over his, hooking her foot against his knee. Try as she might she could not pull them together, her strength no match for his. Still she arched and stretched.  
Noah laughed against her pointed ear. “I’m not going to fuck you,” he said. “I don’t need to, not when you’re so eager. Go on, princess, show me how much you want it.”  
Aetheria let out a little wail, struggling desperately to press back onto him. She could feel him twitch and throb against her, betraying his own eagerness for the very thing he was denying them both. “Please,” she said once more. There was a quaver in her voice born of frustration and need. “Please, please let me fuck you.”

She did not feel any part of him relax, nor his hold loosen, but it must have, because when she arched and pressed against him, she could feel him slide into her, the head of him pressed bluntly against her frontal wall in a way that made her squirm. As quickly as she moved it still felt like torture, as though she could not have him inside her soon enough, but in a moment her fingers brushed his thighs, and she spread herself still wider to bury him as deep as he could go. Noah let go of her waist then, grasping her across the hips instead, and rather than keeping their bodies apart he held them together, so tight that her very breathing shifted him inside of her.

“Tell me, princess,” he said, tone low and full of mischief. “Do you let your husband fuck your ass?”  
She took a long moment to compose her thoughts. It was difficult, entranced as she was by the feeling of him stretching her, every minute shift amplified a thousandfold by her long-delayed need. “No,” she said, her voice low and throaty. “Why would I? I do not go to his bed for pleasure’s sake.”  
Noah hummed thoughtfully, the sound felt as much as heard against the nape of her neck. “His pleasure or yours?”  
“Neither,” Aetheria said. “My pleasure belongs to you, and I can imagine no better steward.”  
He laughed, and it shook his body against hers. It was the most he had moved since entering her, and she could not help but whine in response. “None exists to rival me,” he said. “To your knees, princess,” he instructed, loosening his grip at last.

She obeyed, as slowly as she dared, not ready yet to be parted from him, to lose the pleasant feeling of fullness. But she found she must, in the course of things, and ached for him anew. Aetheria braced herself upon her elbows, her nightgown riding up the curve of her back as she arched. Noah gripped her with one hand, pulling her cheek aside, and she felt the rush of cool air against her vulva.

It was nothing compared to the chill shock of oil as it dripped onto her skin—falling in fat drops, not quite a steady stream—over her rosebud and her folds, until even in what little light was left to them she was sure she must be glistening. Pucker, folds, and the curling dark hair that crowned her all fairly dripped with oil after a few moments, and she shivered. Aetheria heard Noah rub his hands together once more, and shifted in anticipation, sitting back on her haunches to draw her knees up toward her chest.

“Don’t move,” he told her, and she went stock still. He slid into her then, easily—buried once more in her wet, hungry cunt, and Aetheria cried out with surprise. He did not fuck her then, just the same. Instead Noah ran a finger along the puckered rim of her ass, and then pressed into her—not just with one finger but two, slick with oil but still thick, stretching her. It stung, and she whimpered, but a moment before she had been more than ready to take his cock and be done with it. And she wanted him so badly, it was a struggle not to push back despite his edict.

He stretched her, slowly, pressing that pair of fingers into her, and as he passed the first knuckle and pressed onward to the second, that delicious feeling of fullness redoubled. Noah pressed down against her—pressed his cock harder against her walls even through her own body, and she squealed—an embarrassing, girlish sound of delight he answered with breathless laughter. Slowly he spread his fingers apart inside her, stretching her still further, and the pressure abated only slightly. Soon he was knuckle-deep in her ass, rubbing at her slowly. He pumped his fingers but kept his hips still, stroking at her.

No, she realized as Noah let out a groan—he was stroking at _himself._ He could feel himself through that thin wall, and was touching himself inside of her. It was a filthy thought, one that filled her with need anew, and the sensation of him stroking her combined with the pressure it intensified in her cunt only made her hotter.

He experimented with different types of touch, running his fingers along the sides of his cock or pressing down on the solid length, stroking at the coronal ridge. All the ways he liked to touch himself he tried inside of her, and all the while his hips were still and her arousal built. She dared not rock herself against him, but Aetheria could bear down on him, squeeze at him, milk him in her own way.

“You want it so badly,” he growled. “Don’t you, princess?”  
“Yes,” Aetheria said, panting. She hadn’t moved an ilm, and neither had he, but she was surprised to find her skin damp with sweat, and her body trembling with effort. It was so difficult not to grind herself against him.  
Noah planted his free hand beside hers, bowing his body over her back so that he could pant against her ear. When next he called her “princess,” it was in her milk-tongue—the one her father had taught her in secret, long after Garlean had been declared the law of the land. There were few who still spoke the old Nhalmasquan tongue, and fewer still who dared to do so openly. Still, Noah at least knew enough to speak to her, though the phrase she heard most often was the one she longed to hear next. “Come for me,” he told her, in that secret language they shared.

She could not help but obey. Her body clenched around him, clasping at him, pressing his fingers harder into his cock; his cock harder against her walls. She shuddered and moaned, and release flooded through her, and when he gave the command a second time it tore a cry from her throat. Sensation surged through her, crown to root, her whole body alive with sensation. He was still stroking himself as she came, and the next sound that passed his lips was in no language but that animal tongue of pleasure as he spilled his seed inside her once more.

He collapsed onto the bed, still buried inside of her, slipping his hand free at last to rest against the curve of her thigh. The weight of him was almost smothering, pressing her into the bed. His breath rushed against her ear, tangling in her long, long hair. Noah stayed there a long moment, exhausted and so close, so hot, until at last he rolled away and wandered off to wash up.

Aetheria only laid there, face down, still adrift in the lingering pleasure of release, until he came back with a wet cloth, gently wiping the oil from her skin. She was surprised to find how sore she was—from earlier and then from this—but could find no words to say so, only a soft groan. When he went away again there was some part of her that feared he might slip out under the cover of darkness. It would be the wiser thing, perhaps, but she could not wish for it.

Instead he slid back into bed behind her and pulled her into his arms, and she turned on her side to nestle back against him, allowing herself this brief moment of contentment.  
“Alright?” he asked.  
“Mm,” she agreed. “I could stand to do it again.”  
“Good,” he murmured. “Do you know my favorite thing about you, Aetheria?” he began. “When I give you an impossible task, you try to do it anyway. You’ll never succeed, and yet you make your best attempt just the same. Why is that?”  
She laid there against him, in the hours before dawn, when he would surely leave again. “All the things I want are impossible,” she said softly, thinking of the lions in the garden; of her daughters with their sea-green eyes.  
Noah bent his head to press his brow to her shoulder, his shaggy hair brushing her skin. “I know the feeling,” he said, voice more subdued than she expected.

Aetheria wrapped his arms tighter around her body, and tried with all her might to hold the sun back from the sky.


End file.
